Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-04-06
AMERICAN DISHES IN LONDON.


London Paper on the Nean-What II
says Of Fried Chick-n-Other EdibIes-
In America, the bean is the national
herb, quite as much as the yam is in Fiji
| or the potato in Ireland. A New Eng
. lander would scarcely regard Sunday as
duly observed if he did not dino on beans
baked with a cube of pork on the top of
them, and when the SatiriCal boy shouts
To the select man" detected in secular
duties the first day of the week that he
must have forgotten ITO put his beans in
/ To bake last night this fact is popularity
recognized. The bean is the wholesome
] food on which the western pioneer sub
sists. Until roads enable daintier dietary
/ to be indulged in, the gold digger prac-
| tically lives on bacon and beans and on
! prospecting expeditions no food is more
| portable or more sustaining. Without
4 his regular beans the California miner
would regard himself rs starved. Hash
! may be all very well. But i'll pound of
beans boiled with an ounce of pork there
! is as much nutrition a. in haunch of
lean venison.
Chicken fried in cream is southern
dish. 1t is compromise between the
Happy Dispatch of an Indian bunga-
low in the Mofussil and the spatch cock
of a more leisurely land. The clam, as
the chief material of a ''chowder" soup,
may safely be reckoned on to give q bad
quarter OF an hour to the unwary en-
thusiast, but the shai cooked after the
eastern fashion is sure TO be fully appre-
ciated. And above all. are we TO have
''haSh,' II beans form the national dish
Of the eastern states and fried chicken of
the south, ha-esh, to give the word its
roper pronunciation, Is assuredly the
staple of the west. In any new district
beans come first, but ha-esh proclaims
that the resources Of the boarding house
keeper are enlarging What this dish is
composed Of no man not in the trade has
ever yet been able to say with any ap-
proach to certainty. 1t rough glance
it appears to be compound of potatoes,
meat, onions and pepper ali baked to-
gether. But they who recruit exhausted
nature on ha-esh without having doubts
as TO the animal which supplied the meat
are endowed with the faith by which
mountains are removed.
''Sir, said the Colorado mountain hotel
keeper when the ''tenderfoot' ordered
quail on toast. sir. You mean ha-esh
and your going Ia have ha-esh. 1t shall
never be said that any man went back on
his victuals in my house Like thu
frijoles Of a Mexican posada, hash in the
ante railroad days was the one article ct
diet 10 be reckoned on at a western way
side house. But surely We are also 10
have hominy and succotash, those dishes
which the Indians taught the Pilgrim
fathers 10 concoCt, roasting ears and buck
wheat cakes. griddle cakes and ''pome"
from the south, and even those bits OF
portable dyspepsia, the hot biscuit"
without which no American breakfast Is
complete. In the matter of cooking the
Americans have rapidly progressed from
the time when the pioneer roasted his
buffalo or deer's meat ON the end of his
ramrod and, TO make a distinction with
out a difference, the gentlemen" of the
great fur company ate red salmon and the
men white. In some parts of the cOun-
try-in Texas. for example, which Horace
Greeley declared needed nothing 50 much
rs dozen or two of decent cooks-it still
lacks much in this respect, Yet at the
table dhote Of a l0-year- old western
city the traveller is amazed to find
dinner which for excellence and variety
1t would he difficult 10 surpass n London.
London Standard